Ethics: The Basic Concepts

According to the Handbook of Clinical Neurology (2013), voluntary active euthanasia is the
administration, by physician, of a lethal agent (or the administration of a therapeutic agent at a
lethal dose) actively permitted by the patient, with the intent to cause the latter’s death, for the
purpose of relieving intolerable, intractable, and incurable pain.

Physician- assisted suicide is the doctor’s deliberate assistance in implementing a patience

suicide plan.
A Brief History of Euthanasia

 400 B.C
It is believed that euthanasia started in ancient Greece and Rome around the fifth century
B.C. They did this by abortions and every now and then performed a mercy killing. Even
though doctors were supposed to follow the Hippocratic Oath, many did not and therefore
would end up giving patients poison if they asked them to.

 17-18th Centuries
For over 700 years, the Anglo American common law tradition has punished or otherwise
disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide. For the most part, the early American
colonies adopted the common law approach.
 20-21 Centuries
The Netherlands would be the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia and Belgium
would legalize it soon after the Netherlands did. Australia did not allow euthanasia for a brief
time in the mid-90’s as well. In 1998, Oregon would be the first US state to allow euthanasia
and Washington and Montana would allow.

 Middle Ages
If one committed suicide, the law in Europe was for the body to be “dragged through streets
or nailed to a barrel and left to drift downriver” (procon.org)

 Early 20th Centuries

During the 1930’s euthanasia started to gain support in the US and societies who were in
favor of it started to pop up not only in the US, but in England as well. However, the World
War II would change euthanasia forever. Hitler and Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of
people using euthanasia.
What are Moral Standards?
The rightness and wrongness of an act makes us, willingly or unwillingly, confront the
morality of our decisions. It is significant, therefore, that we analyse carefully, not only the
motive our actions, but to be certain that our actions are indeed keeping up with the ethical
values that we have.
At the forefront of this discussion is the value that we give to moral standard which serve
as our guide to the rightness of our behavior. We are tied to some sets of moral standard that
we bring us as we make moral decisions. These standards serve as our compass, a sort of
light in our path, keeping us in our toes, thus, allowing us to check if our actions behoves
ethical and moral ideals.
*Morality- is the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason, to do what there are the best reasons
for doing- while giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who will be affected by what
one does.

*Ethics- referring to the philosophical concept of morality, which analyzes concepts, such as
right and wrong, and seeks to establish principles of right behavior that may serve as guides to
action for people to follow.
 ETHICS VERSUS MORALS

ETHICS MORALS

Guiding principles of conduct of an Principles on which one’s judgements of

individual group. right and wrong are based.

Influenced by profession, field, organization, Influenced by society, culture and religion.

etc.

Related to professional work. Not related to professional work.

Uniform compared to morals. Vary according to different cultured and

religions
 Mores (pronounce more-ays) are strongly held norms, which represent the deeply held
standards of what is right and wrong.

 Moral Standards ethical principles that we live by and believe. These are important
blueprints of our behavior, which we abide by daily, and are influenced by our society, or by
certain ethical universals.

 Non- Moral Standards are those unwanted principles, which are in opposition to
everything that we are expected to be and do.
Moral Dilemmas

H.E Mason (1996), expound that moral conflict is a fact of moral life. It is something that we
can never do away with. It is embedded in the crucial decisions that we make, particularly in the
moments that we are faced with what is and what should be.

Moral dilemmas arise due to inconsistency in our principles. In understanding the morality of
an individual, we need to emphasize that majority of the moral persons are those who are sturdily
disposed to stand fast by their reflectively chosen principles and ideals when tempted by
considerations chosen that morally irrelevant (Louden, 1992)
EUTHANASIA
-exists to at least help a patient die a good death (Ezra 2006).

The word “euthanasia” itself comes from the Greek words “eu” (good) and “thanatos” (death).
The idea is that instead of condemning someone to a slow, painful, or undignified death,
Euthanasia would allow the patient to experience a relatively “good death.”

Types of euthanasia

 Active Euthanasia
Killing a patient by active means.

 Passive Euthanasia
Intentionally letting a patient die by withholding artificial life support such as a ventilator
or feeding tube.
 Voluntary Euthanasia
With the consent of the patient.

 Involuntary Euthanasia
Without the consent of the patient

 Self-administered Euthanasia
The patient administers the means of death.

 Other-administered Euthanasia
A person other than the patient administers the means of death.
 Assisted
The patient administers the means of death but with the assistance of another person,
such as a physician.

 Mercy-killing

The term “mercy-killing” usually refers to active, involuntary or non-voluntary, other-

administered euthanasia.

 Physician-assisted suicide
The phrase “physician-assisted suicide” refers to active, voluntary, assisted
euthanasia where a physician assists the patient. A physician provides the patient with
a means, such as sufficient medication, for the patient to kill him or herself.
Ethical dilemmas also arise in our workplace. The stress in the workplace is not only a result of
beating deadlines and what not, but also of the ethical issues surrounding the workplace. As it is
very important that employees live up to certain standards prescribed by the companies and
organizations, it is likewise significant for the latter to uphold ethical standards in and for the
company.

Three Levels of Ethical Standard in a Business Organization

1. Individual. The dilemma here is when the employee’s ethical standards are in opposition to that
of his or her employer, which could lead to tensions in the workplace.
2. Organizational. Ethical standards are seen in company policies. Still and all, there might be a
gap between those who run the business whose ethical standards deviate from that of the
organization.
3. Systematic. Also called as the systematic level, here, ethics is disposed by the larger of
operating environment of the company. Political pressures, economic conditions, societal
attitudes and others, can affect the operating standards and policies of the organization where it
might face moral dilemmas outside of organization but within the macro-society where it
belongs.

Freedom as Foundation of Ethics

In making moral decisions, Immanuel Kant runs to human autonomy as the principal
foundation of morality. “Autonomy” literally means giving the law to oneself, and our understanding
provides laws that constitute a priori knowledge is “prior to”, or independent of, experience, but,
more importantly, identical for all human beings and not subject to change (Louden, 1992).
 Kant pointed out that moral rightness and wrongness apply only to free agents who have that
capacity to regulate their behaviour and have it in their power, at the time of their actions, either to
act rightly or not. Hence, when we make choices, we must act “under the idea of freedom”.

Freedom does not give us the ability to decide similarly. Our free will dictates that we have
differences in self-consciousness which makes it even more complicated to entirely grasp the
Kant’s philosophical mooring. Rationality is not entirely the same for all of us.
 Thank you for
listening!
Have a good day everyone!